“I discovered how they did it,” I said. “Granger, the FBI man I tied up out at the house, knew what car I was using. They put the license number on the police radio and some squad spotted it parked near Huber Street. There were a dozen Feds in the block ten minutes later, and the sound of shooting did the rest.”
The door to the hearing room opened and a young man beckoned to us. I took Lodi by the arm and we walked in and sat down at a long table. Across from us were several dignified-looking men in conservative business suits. Two of them I already knew: Millard Cavendish, the ranking member of the AEC; and Winston Blake, a sharp-featured bantam rooster of a man, who wore elevator shoes and sported a black-ribboned pince-nez. Blake and I had taken an instant dislike to each other the first time we met, shortly after my return from Africa, and I knew he would be out for my scalp this time for sure.
Millard Cavendish sounded a gavel and brought the meeting to order. He was a tall, thin man with deep hollows under his cheeks and a shock of iron-grey hair that kept sliding down over his high forehead. He said, “Your name is Karl Terris and you reside in Clinton Township, Catskill County, in the State of New York. Is that correct?”
I looked at the girl behind the stenotype machine and said, “That is correct.”
At this point, Winston Blake, who had been staring hard at Lodi, cut in to say, “Mr. Cavendish, will you order this woman to remove her veil? I see no reason why she should keep her face covered during this hearing.”
Before Cavendish could open his mouth, I said, “That veil stays on, Blake.”
The little man bristled. “Speak when you’re spoken to, sir! We’re running this hearing.”
“Then go ahead and run it. But the veil stays on.”
Cavendish said quietly, “This is a hearing, Mr. Blake, not a style symposium. Let’s get on with this, shall we?”
“I think Mr. Terris should be reminded,” Blake snapped, “that it is within the province of this committee to cite a witness for contempt.”
“Let’s hope,” I said, “that none of its members gives me a reason for being contemptuous.”
Behind me somebody smothered a chuckle. Blake’s face turned a fiery red. The gavel smacked its block once and Cavendish said, “Mr. Terris, you appeared before this committee some six weeks ago upon your unexpected return from Africa after an absence of two years. At the time of your disappearance you were, as a volunteer, engaged in mapping an area of French Equatorial Africa by air for the United States Government. The purpose of this aerial survey was to locate unusually rich deposits of fissionable material believed to be somewhere in that locality. Am I correct thus far?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In your appearance before this committee earlier you stated, under oath, that you failed to locate such deposits, that you had no idea where, if at all, they were located, and that the photographs taken of the locality had been destroyed at the time your plane crashed. This, too, is correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
Cavendish fixed me with a not unkindly eye. “Do you, at this time, wish to enlarge on that testimony?”
“No, sir.”
The chairman picked up a sheet of paper from a thin sheaf next to his right elbow, studied it briefly, then put it down and looked sharply at me. “Mr. Terris,” he said, “twelve days ago a Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Mather died under mysterious circumstances in the south of France. An examination showed both had died of being exposed to cosmic radiation of a highly concentrated form. Exposure took place, it has been established, between thirty and thirty-five days before their deaths. Further investigation revealed that the couple was aboard the tramp steamer City of Stockholm at the time of such exposure. Now, it is a matter of record that you chartered the City of Stockholm at the port of Dakar, in Africa, for the purpose of transporting you and your wife to America. Furthermore, the cabin you and your wife occupied during the crossing was the one occupied immediately afterward by Mr. and Mrs. Mather. An immediate investigation was made of the ship and your cabin by qualified scientists, and a faint but unmistakable trace of radiation was found therein. By this time the radiation was far too slight to harm anyone, but the fact remains that it was found therein. In view of these facts, and in view of the purpose behind your original visit to Africa, this committee again asks if you wish to correct your previous testimony.”
“No, sir.”
There was a general shuffling of feet and shifting of chairs by the rest of the committee. Blake leaned toward the man to his left and whispered something in his ear. The two of them engaged Cavendish in a muttered colloquy pitched too low for me to hear, even if I had wanted to, which I didn’t.
Senator McGill bent over me.
“Damn it, Karl, what are you trying to pull? They’ve got enough evidence to pin perjury on you ten times over! This is your country; why aren’t you willing to help it?”
I looked up at him. “Senator, if anyone’s going to teach me patriotism, it won’t be you. Now kindly get the hell away from me!”
Lodi reached over and put a gloved hand on my arm and squeezed it understandingly. Behind the heavy veil she was watching me, I knew, with deep concern.
Millard Cavendish had concluded his discussion with the rest of the committee members. He looked me directly in the eye and the lines of his face were stern.
“I have some questions to ask you, Mr. Terris. Please let me remind you that this committee is empowered to ask these questions and to demand a truthful answer to each. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly.”
He nodded shortly. “I will ask you, Mr. Terris, if you brought into this country, at any time a device or machine having to do with cosmic radiation or energy?”
“No, sir.”
A wrinkle deepened between his eyes. “Then how do you explain what happened to the Mathers and the finding of the experts who examined your cabin on the City of Stockholm?”
“That, Mr. Cavendish,” I said, “would be a matter of conjecture on my part. I recognize this committee’s right to ask me questions, but I do not believe it can demand conjectures.”
The wrinkle became a frown. “Then I will ask you, sir: do you know how the cosmic radiation got into that cabin?”
“The question,” I said, “is do I know how the radiation got into that cabin. The answer is no.”
Winston Blake said, “This man is deliberately evasive. I say he should be cited for contempt for his last remark, and for every succeeding remark of its kind.”
“Is that supposed to intimidate me?” I asked.
The gavel came down, hard. Cavendish said, “Let’s keep our tempers, gentlemen... Mr. Terris, while you were in Africa, did you come into contact with any device, manufactured or natural that had to do with cosmic radiations or energy?”
“I did.”
It took a moment for the reply to get a reaction. There was a sudden babble of voices behind me and the members of the committee stiffened in their chairs. Cavendish rapped several times before order was restored.
He said sternly, “As a patriotic American, Mr. Terris, you must have a sound reason for withholding such information from your country. This committee would like to hear that reason.”
I said, “I yield to no one on the strength of my patriotism. But I’m not going to confuse patriotism with chauvinism. By revealing the location of the machines used in controlling and concentrating cosmic energy, I would bring death and destruction not only to a peaceful and innocent people but to the rest of the world.”